This is the “Prologue” fromg Eight Mood Pictures Op. 1, No. 1 composed between 1895 and 1902 by Nikolai Medtner. In my interpretation the Prologue takes on the atmosphere and imagery of a romantic and sometimes intense reverie.

The piece is embedded in 3 against 2 polyrhythms, and double note figurations abound. The melody is played by both hands, one either mirroring or shadowing the other given the polyrhythms, or sometimes with one hand offering counterpoint to the other. Along with melody, the right hand plays accompaniment too. The left hand similarly attends simultaneously to melody, bass harmonies and accompaniment and covers a surprising compass of the keyboard, sometimes making difficult leaps. At times the left becomes the dominant hand in the flow of the music. I’m reminded of Thalberg’s “three hands” illusion which might have influenced Medtner’s design. These complexities require careful voicing and layering of sound into foreground and background, as well as being alert to voice leading between the hands.

Nearing the midpoint of the recording, with the entrance of Part B the fantasy shifts unexpectedly into a a more somber minor mode causing the dreamer a moment of unease--but the music soon blooms into a lush, ultra-romantic and gripping climax which gradually ebbs and gives way to the tranquil reprise of the reverie’s main theme, the piece ending in a gentle double-notes coda fading into the quiet of the night.

I believe that the Prologue works splendidly as a standalone piano solo and need not be played as part of the suite.

Hi David,Wow, that is a big and very romantic piece of music. Perfect for you! I've never heard it before, but I can tell that it is certainly not easy. I think you did a nice job though, and you definitely brought out all the romantic drama in the piece, as I would expect from you! However, there were some parts where I sort of felt like your right hand was just a little bit too loud in that I found it slightly hard to tune it out enough so that I could hear the melody. Hope that make sense - that back and forth business was sometimes just a little too much. But really, it's probably just so hard to play this because there is so much going on - I'm wondering if you really have three hands?

Also, listening to the file on my computer I heard four strange pops - specifically at 1:47, 2:36, 3:49, and 4:14. Do you hear that on your computer? Maybe they are editing points, but I think you hardly ever edit your recordings, so I don't really know. Also, we are asking that everyone submit recordings with proper tags. You can find information on that at the top of this forum. It saves us admins time. I will fix all your tags here, but I would very much appreciate if you could make correct tags on your next submission. So that's it...sorry to be a nag about the tags. But nice playing, David. I will put up your recording tomorrow.

_________________"Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties." ~ Frederic Chopin

Thanks for those nice compliments! I found this piece to be very difficult and frustrating. I'd been practicing it since November. And although I could play it through flawlessly even at tempo with the metronome, as soon as I'd switch to performance mode far more focused on the musicality as opposed to the mechanics of practicing, problems would pop up. Then today I thought that I should bite the bullet and record, otherwise it probably wouldn't happen. Well, I had two recording sessions. Yesterday I did several takes. When I went to listen to them, there was no sound. Somehow, probably while transporting the recorder to the PC and back to the piano, a finger apparently must have turned the phantom power switch to off leaving the misc without power. All that effort was lost! Probably Medtner was mocking me. Today, if there was an error, it got intensive therapy, but in the very next recording a problem would pop up which had never done so before! It was so frustrating. Because of the difficulties, there is an occasion small slip in some places. I also have to confess that I inserted a chord that is an addition to the score. I don't remember it happening during recording, but surmise that I must have gotten off track, or hesitated. Evidently my brain rapidly did a musical fix. I listened to it three times and finally examined the score. It was me, not Medtner. I started an edit but then reversed it as I really liked the sound of it there. So that's my very first intentional "emmendation" to a score.

I well know that spot where you wanted to hear more of the LH. The LH is more of a point of interest there, although not melody really, just rising arpeggios. But here's the thing: Medtner wrote fff on top of the treble staff there--quite emphatic--so I observed his direction. What I did do as best I could was to bring up the LH. Until the diminuendo kicks in, that music is like fireworks!

Yes, there a few edits. I got rid of two page turns just for you. I believe the other two were erasing hesitations in the playing.

Anyway, I don't know if I'll do more Medtner or not. The time investment is huge. I'd really need to think about it.

I did study your tag requirements but in General, as I somehow missed the sticky at the top. I use AVS Audio Converter to reformat from WAV to MP3. The only fields I filled out in the tag information was my last name, Medtner's last name, and 1-1 for Op. 1 No. 1. The MP3 goes on automatically there. Thought that would do the trick, but I guess not. I'll look into the Windows Music library option, as I don't use iTunes.

Thanks again.

David

_________________"Interpreting music means exploring the promise of the potential of possibilities." David April

Very good job David. You thoroughly understand this piece and mostly bring off the two inner voices very well. The couple of slips such as there are did not bother me at all, nor the hesitations. However the clearly audible edits at 2:35 and 3:48 are really jarring and ugly. It's great that you deal with the page turns but you may want to practice a bit more on smooth cutting - always make sure you have at least one bar overlap so you can choose from multiple points to cut. I sometimes have do redo a cut half a dozen times before it sounds ok. Dynamics are handled well though I had wanted a bit more perdendosi at the end, you are not exactly ppp there (but tell me about how hard that is on an old characterful instrument....).

And apart from the ID3 tagging, please also upload correct filenames. No caps, spaces, dots, etc. The name should have been

David, I had a listen while at work with a noisy space heater running under my feet. The big picture for me was well-voiced melody (smoothly transitioned from hand to hand) and good layering of the different levels of the work. I don't know what the indicated tempo is, but for me it seemed all a bit restrained in tempo. I realize that this is a very complex work (more than just a solo ballerina and male counterpart, but a whole troop of dancers about and behind) and if the Prologue is that difficult, I'd be afraid to view the substance that follows. I heard much similarity to Bortkiewicz.

Thanks for the recording and best wishes for a happy new year. I had the piano tuned last week and will hopefully follow in the ice you have broken.Eddy

_________________Eddy M. del Rio, MD"A smattering will not do. They must know all the keys, major and minor, and they must literally 'know them backwards.'" - Josef Lhevinne

I also have to confess that I inserted a chord that is an addition to the score. I don't remember it happening during recording, but surmise that I must have gotten off track, or hesitated. Evidently my brain rapidly did a musical fix. I listened to it three times and finally examined the score. It was me, not Medtner. I started an edit but then reversed it as I really liked the sound of it there. So that's my very first intentional "emmendation" to a score.

Sounds like you did indeed have a difficult time recording this! But your inserting an extra chord makes me laugh a little. It's like you're going along, and suddenly wham! - "I think I'll play a chord"....

David wrote:

Yes, there a few edits. I got rid of two page turns just for you. I believe the other two were erasing hesitations in the playing

Thank you! I do appreciate that. But Chris is right - maybe you can 'practice' making edits next time around.

This is now up on the site.

_________________"Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties." ~ Frederic Chopin

Thanks for those kind words! On the editing: Well, I'm getting a little better. It's not like one or two pieces ago where you could still hear a sliver of the page rattling. I find even with enlargement that it's difficult. The reason is the pace of the music is still the same so it seems like the marker zips over the enlargement faster, but that's just an optical illusion. On one of those turns I watched the marker cross over it at least a dozen times trying to site the beginning and end, as there were not peaks and valleys in the landscape to judge. (Probably it's a good thing that I'm not a surgeon. )

Regarding the coda, I did call on the soft pedal for assistance there. The keys to this piece are articulation, accuracy, and musicality. That's a double notes coda moves right along. I was cautious in handling that figuration because there is ledger line G# that recurs there that later I thought was actually an F#. So I started practicing with the F#. Then horror of horrors, I later rediscovered that the G# was actually correct! So then I had to fight the tendency to play the F#s. (This is the joy of playing from PDFs.) So I was focused mostly on accuracy there. There is no perdendosi or morendo actually marked there, but I agree with you that it would provide an even better tapering off.

On tagging I tried to do it through AVS Audio Converter, one of the best, and entered only the required fields you specified. They don't have a selection whereby you can run the whole tag name together. So I entered it into the artist, composer, and title fields. But... maybe it could all go into the composer field provided there are enough characters in it. I'll do a dummy trial of that and submit it here to see if it works. If not I'll have to play around with Windows 7 to see if I can figure out their system. I don't use iTunes.

Thanks again.

David

_________________"Interpreting music means exploring the promise of the potential of possibilities." David April

I'm glad you enjoyed listening. And thanks for the compliment. As to tempo, I took it slower than marked. I'm was already having a time with accuracy, so a faster tempo would have ruled out the piece for me.

Ha-ha! Regarding that emmendation, although it was purely accidental, actually I believe it enhances the transition into the following section. But I wouldn't want to tell Medtner that!

Looking forward to you upcoming recording and hearing the SF-10.

David

_________________"Interpreting music means exploring the promise of the potential of possibilities." David April

Regarding edits, this may be well known by others but just in case: To avoid having any "crack," "tick," "nick" or what ever sound you must splice together the kept music in such a manner that the wave forms meet at the zero amplitude line. You must zoom way in and will need to adjust the view as you do so to keep track of where you're going, but if you can match the zero point of the descending slope of a positive wave right up against the start of the descending slope of a negative wave (or vice versa), your splice will be seamless and will have NO noise at all. You may need to go looking for this if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Good luck

_________________Eddy M. del Rio, MD"A smattering will not do. They must know all the keys, major and minor, and they must literally 'know them backwards.'" - Josef Lhevinne

Thanks for that further insight on splicing. So for example, if I needed to delete a page turn, there would be some width in the delineated area containing the page turn to be erased. Thus, I would want the right leading edge to optimally be at the zero point abutting the following upslope. Often though there is enough sound present such that the valley is not all the way down to zero amplitude. In a case like that, then I would want to at least do the cut with the right leading edge of the delineation positioned at the absolute lowest point of the valley, but no farther to the right, yes? I had to deal with a couple of those yesterday, but what I was doing instead was filling in the valley with the edge of the marked delineation abutting some of the right wall of the valley. That was probably too far over and should have stopped at the lowest point of the valley, even though it was above zero value. Am I interpreting correctly?

David

_________________"Interpreting music means exploring the promise of the potential of possibilities." David April

Thanks for that further insight on splicing. So for example, if I needed to delete a page turn, there would be some width in the delineated area containing the page turn to be erased. Thus, I would want the right leading edge to optimally be at the zero point abutting the following upslope. Often though there is enough sound present such that the valley is not all the way down to zero amplitude. In a case like that, then I would want to at least do the cut with the right leading edge of the delineation positioned at the absolute lowest point of the valley, but no farther to the right, yes? I had to deal with a couple of those yesterday, but what I was doing instead was filling in the valley with the edge of the marked delineation abutting some of the right wall of the valley. That was probably too far over and should have stopped at the lowest point of the valley, even though it was above zero value. Am I interpreting correctly?

David

Yes David. Basically you want to make a squiggly continuous sine-wave, without any wave line free in the air making a "bridge to nowhere." With a little practice, you can find spots not at zero but still make the splice continuous.

_________________Eddy M. del Rio, MD"A smattering will not do. They must know all the keys, major and minor, and they must literally 'know them backwards.'" - Josef Lhevinne

OK, thanks for that info! Not that I want to start editing music, but some listeners, not all, strongly dislike page turns. With obscure music, I have to read mostly from PDFs, which are smaller notational print as you know. For four-pagers, sometimes I can get away with spreading all four pages along the music desk, but the more challenging the music, it seems the more difficult page 4 is to read, some to the point where I simply can't do the spread of the sheets, thereby increasing page turns. And if it's a five-pager, when I try to get to page 5, the mics make it sound like the house was just hit by a tornado. So I certainly want to do the best I can with this type of edit.

David

_________________"Interpreting music means exploring the promise of the potential of possibilities." David April

I had a listen to your recording of this Medtner prologue. Interesting title! It sounds very impressionistic from a compositional perspective and you bring this out well with your phrasing. How you combine the high register playing with lower register playing seems to create a mood that two polar opposites are being brought together or at least relating to each other. The audio sounded good to me. For criticism, one thing I would have liked was more range in dynamics from soft to loud. But there was still a good range in the recording

Very much enjoyed listening to this!

Riley

_________________"I don't know what music is, but I know it when I hear it." - Alan SchuylerRiley Tucker

At first, I clicked on the link in this post but said to myself that it couldn't be Medtner because it was far too modern (also saw Alexander's name and Symanokwski in the tag). Then I looked and saw your comment above, so I listened on the main site where it is right.

Anyway, what a wonderful example of late Russian expressionism! Very fine playing overall as well. I particularly liked your phrasing, at turns tapered. sweeping, and grand. Good voicing too in general. There are perhaps some places where you could bring it off with a bit more conviction but I know that that can be very difficult with some of those left hand leaps and the interlocking texture between the hands. The only other thing I noted is that at times your pedalling seemed a bit abrupt so that I heard a light hiccup between certain of the phrases (though mostly your foot lifting seemed fairly even).

As a general comment, I very much enjoyed listening to both the piece and your playing. It's nice to hear IMO one of the best lesser-known composers (and a gem I had not yet heard) and convincing handling of the polyphonic textures on your part.

I tell you, that piece is a treacherous beast to play! When I listen to the recording, all I hear are things I wish I could have done better, but overall people seem to like it. It amazes me that an Op. 1, No. 1 is of this high quality. I would have expected more of a student conservatory piece written in composition class. But this Prologue has incredible complexities in it. It definitely shows the promise of things to come from Medtner. Yes, I should have done more with dynamics. I think I was hanging on for dear life most of the time, so I couldn't give that is much attention as I would have liked. But, there are some nice dynamic contrasts. The often wide separation of the registers you mention was a challenge along with the leaps. More often than not, the thumbs were playing the melody while the other fingers handled figuration. I think the style is a mix of impressionism and expressionism. The impressionism sets the nocturne-like mood of the reverie. The expressionism is especially present in the ecstasy of the the climaxes. It was tough, but I'm glad I learned and played it.

Thanks for listening and commenting!

David

_________________"Interpreting music means exploring the promise of the potential of possibilities." David April

Thanks for your very kind comments, especially on my playing. I have to say that as I listen, I cringe at certain things I should have done better. But people seem to love this music. I believe it is seldom played, but what a jewel! I wish I could have done even more with the voicing (the problem is the thumbs doing melody while the other fingers are busy with harmony and accompaniment figuration). I too noticed a few of those pedals that were a bit abrupt. Usually I'm fairly good at half-pedaling to take care of the overtones. I think that the complexities of the piece riveted my attention such that I was less aware of the pedaling. This is a piece where if you get off track, it's difficult to impossible to get back on track. And in places where the texture is thinner and more transparent, there's no place to hide. It's very treacherous and unforgiving in that way. I feel relieved now that it's recorded. Thanks again!

David

_________________"Interpreting music means exploring the promise of the potential of possibilities." David April

But from the cuts mentioned already, very well done! I have not seen the score and have no experience from the piece, but it sounds pretty complicated and it sounds like the hands are often wide apart. That is always very complicated if you need to read the score at the same time, or maybe you know most of the piece by heart? Anyway, very good!

Thanks for listening and commenting! When I first looked at the score of this piece, I underestimated it. Once I was practicing, Medtner made that clear very quickly. It's truly devilish and treacherous to play. Yes the hands are often spread widely apart. Plus the notation is very often an elaborate Thalberg "three hands" technique with the thumbs playing the melodic line while the remaining fingers attend to all of the harmony, filligree and accompaniment in both hands. It still amazes me that Medtner could come up with such an intricate design for his Op. 1, No. 1! It certainly foreshadowed big things to come. I'm certainly glad to have played and recorded it (while retaining my sanity), despite some flaws here and there. Trying to get a single-take recording of this beast was no less a challenge. Thus, I'm also very glad to be moving on to other piano literature now.

For the last couple of decades I've played and recorded everything with the scores. Unfortunately, I'm well passed the age where memorization is an option. Also when I record, I have to be the pianist, sound technician, and page turner.

I very much appreciate your compliment on my playing. Thanks!

David

_________________"Interpreting music means exploring the promise of the potential of possibilities." David April

Happy New Year, David!I am not familiar with this work, but it seems that it fits the description of the grand Russian piano tradition. Rhythmically you have the piece under control, and it is very expressive. Some wrong notes don't detract our attention. I am not sure which program you use, but in WaveLab, for example, there is "Waveform Restorer" which essentially removes clicks and pops either automatically or when you manually select the area. One of the difficulties in a piece with polyrhythms and polyharmonics is to project cohesiveness of all the elements. The need for that unifying force would be my comment on this wonderful piece. It's very difficult to achieve that in 2 months for a piece like this... I find that such pieces take much longer to achieve a stylistic and technical cohesiveness; an organic sense of unity that binds all aspects of the music together. With time, familiarity, and continued understanding, this is just one of those pieces that you might find yourself wanting to re-record where the focus of one's energy lies solely on the music and not the notes... It will improve every time that you do. Nonetheless, I always enjoy your deep understanding of Russian Romantic piano music.

George

_________________"Nobility of spirit has more to do with simplicity than ostentation, wisdom rather than wealth, commitment rather than ambition." ~Riccardo Muti

Regarding editors, I have AVS Audio Editor. It has a million effect selections on it, but not Waveform Restorer. Does it go by any other name? Also regarding "pops", AVS does have a Noise Removal option, but those pops you're referring to are so microscopic and so quiet, it would be hard to even accurately sample one of them, and because one pop can be slightly different in sound from the next, it might not even correlate the sample to others that vary. I have used the Noise Removal successfully, for example, to remove air conditioning defuser hiss from a recording (where there enough lead-in before the music started to obtain a great sample). The editor program then removed that from the entire recording. But an isolated very quiet pop would be very tough it seems to me, trying to do it with Noise Removal. There are some great sound technicians here at PS as well their as being fine pianists. To them it would probably be routine as they edit regularly, whereas I try to avoid it altogether if I can, except for page turns that sound like tornadoes.

I agree with everything you say about living with a piece long enough to know it intimately, that "stylistic and technical cohesiveness" as you refer to it. No doubt about it. The problem is that this piece was so fiendishly difficult, I was glad to escape alive, call it a day and move on. Right now I feel like I need a very extended vacation from it. Of course, if you stay away from a piece for a few weeks, the subconscious--without one knowing it--keeps working on the piece such that when one picks it up again, certain challenges seem easier. Beyond that period, I've found it's like relearning the piece all over again. So I'd have to give that some thought. This is my second encounter with Medtner, and I'm not sure I want to tangle with him again at this point. Whenever I select a new repertoire piece, I consider it to be an investment in time and effort. And I feel that I earn larger dividends from playing the music of some of the other Russian late romantics. So when it comes to Medtner, my motivation is at low ebb at the moment to be honest.

Thanks for listening and also your helpful and insightful comments too.

David

_________________"Interpreting music means exploring the promise of the potential of possibilities." David April

Hi David,bravo to that beautiful performance! I think, you have brought out the polyrhythmical structure very well, not too metrical, but with nice rubati, like it should be in a romantic piece. This piece indeed is of an impressive complexity, like it is typical for Medtner respective late russian romantic. I also think, the voice leading of the alto and tenor middle voices is felicitous. Dynamical subtle with many nuances you interprete this piece in an absolutely adequate and enjoyable way! It was a great pleasure to listen to your rendition and to (re)meet this piece, which I only have heard onetime before, I think. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks for listening and commenting on the Prologue, and also for your nice compliments! I found this to be a very tough piece to play and record. But it was worth all the frustrations. If I were ever to revisit it again, I would try to bring out the sigh motifs better in the climax. I do it at first now, but as the dynamic goes into diminuendo, they are not as clear as they should be. The textures in this piece are so thick at times, it's quite difficult to make all the subtleties heard. But all things considered, I think it's a good start. Thanks again!

Have a wonderful new year!

David

_________________"Interpreting music means exploring the promise of the potential of possibilities." David April

This was a new piece to me, and it seems to me that you have handled the complex textural demands well. The outer sections had some truly lovely moments. At the climax towards the middle of the piece there seemed to be signs of a struggle, but that's probably not surprising. You have certainly been successful in producing the illusion of more than two hands at work.

I don't know how you practiced the piece, but I've found that when working on "Thalberg"-style textures, it is useful to practice the melody as a completely separate entity to the figuration: on its own, or with its (typically bass-on-the-beat and not much else) rhythm accompaniment added - but still without the figuration - and using the thumbs and any other required fingers of both hands exactly as fingered within the fully laid-out texture, whilst focussing on evenness of touch between the hands; then practice the figuration without the melody and try to ensure it is technically secure. Without studying the score, I can't say how this piece compares to the standard figurations in Thalberg, which are often virtuosic in nature but straightforward in concept, usually comprising a fairly linear up and/or down structure of arpeggios, octaves, or quasi-scalic figures - this makes them easy to internalise and thus (hopefully!) leaving more time to pay attention to the melody.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. Early on in practicing, I did play the melody alone to increase awareness of where it was positioned (as it shifts around now and then). I didn't do as much with the accompaniments alone, although perhaps I should have. Then with hands together in slow practice I tended to very much exaggerate the melodies above the other figuration, and if the melody was in both hands, I exaggerated that too. There were a couple of places in particular where I would have liked to highlight the melody even more in the recording. But... the piece gets so frenetic at times, I think I became distracted simply reaching for the notes, making leaps, etc. That sometimes degraded my musical intents. I believe that if I were to revisit the piece in the future, I could probably overcome those problems or at least get a better handle on them. This is one of those complicated pieces that I consider a work in progress--maybe for many years.

David

_________________"Interpreting music means exploring the promise of the potential of possibilities." David April

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